In an earlier article about my road trip to Sydney I explained how I had the misfortune to get tennis elbow.

Tennis (or golfers) elbow is caused by inflammation of the tendons that attach the muscles in the forearm to the bone on the elbow. It is actually mainly caused by poor ergonomics and often mouse use is to blame.

Tennis elbow is a chronic condition and people can have it for years and never really get rid of it. In my case the symptoms started in December and by mid March it was not getting any better despite a program of stretches, exercises and foam rolling.

In the last 2 weeks I have purchased a flexbar and this $40 lump of rubber has made a huge impact on my symptoms. It has been proven in trials to be effective in a number of trials

In 1971 President Nixon Declared “War on Cancer”

In 1971 one in thirty would develop cancer in their lifetime, today the figure is one in three.

The film Surviving Terminal Cancer suggests this failure is due to a flawed approach the medical establishment has towards terminal disease. The film covers a number of individuals that have been diagnosed with terminal cancer and in many cases given just months to live. Many of the individuals are still alive today (10 or 15 years later). The reason they are still alive is by ignoring the advice of their oncologists and self administering a cocktail of drugs. This practice has been shown to be effective against HIV but for other terminal diseases is difficult and often illegal.

The film highlights how the patients best interests and the the best interests of science are often at odds especially in cases of terminal disease.

Biohacking is the process of using measurement to gain insight to optimize your health. A great diet and excersize regime can be completely ineffective if your not getting enough high quality sleep. Fortunately measuring sleep has just got a lot easier with the use of an iphone app that measures your sleep cycles while you sleep.

What are sleep cycles?

During the night people go through a number of cycles between light medium and deep sleep, each cycle lasts about 90 minutes. You can use this information to infer sleep quality and also optimize the best time for you to wake up. The optimal time to wake up is when you are in your light sleep part of your cycle.

The sleep cycle app measures your sleep quality by measuring movement using the gyros in the phone and sound with the microphone. The software uses this information to measure your sleep cycles.

My Findings

I have been using the app for about 3 weeks and can say that alcohol has consistently given me the worst quality sleep wheras eating a small amount of fat and reading a book have booth correlated to my having a better nights sleep. Thursday is also consistently my best sleep of the week.

A friend of mine asked me for some Paleo meal ideas

I have been on a paleolithic diet for a few years now. I have been interested in nutrition for about 10 years and have settled on this approach because I like the straight forward philosophy that underpins it which makes making decisions about good and bad food choices easy. [Read more…]

People that don’t read books are missing out.

I love books I also love consuming information through media such as podcasts. However books provide a method of learning complex topics in a way you cannot learn from other media. I wrote an article on the effect of media and critical though on the usethetrivium website.[Read more…]

I have been listening to the Paleo Podcast with Rob Wolf talking about a video on Ted Talks. The video is by Research Associate from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Oklahoma, Christina Warinner. The title of the talk is “Debunking the Paleo Myth”.

I am open minded to new information on this subject and watched the video before I listened to all of to Rob’s podcast. On watching the video I was surprised. Christina Warrina is either a sloppy researcher or she was cynically attempting to alter facts and focus to suit her narrative on a topic that will no doubt get her alot of publicity.

Steps to Recovery

Treating cancer with selenium

Selenium is a cheap supplement that medicals trials suggest is effective at reducing and removing tumours without significant side effects.

I was listening to an interview with Keith Pendlebury he was a nice guy who is retired and spent years researching cancer cures. He has developed a method to cure cancers using selenium that he originally developed to help his father. He is happy to share his method and provide free advice with anyone and has published an ebook on his site that explains more details. In the interview he explains what drove him to do what he is doing and also details the technical reasons as to how selenuim works and the research he did.

On his website he quotes many medical trials that study the use of selenium when combating cancer. In the interview he also mentioned the work of Linus Pauling. I have written a post before about Dr Linus Pauling , winner of 2 Nobel prizes(for Chemistry and Physics). He has also published a number of books on cancer and I have read Cancer and Vitamin C and a few other of his books. He has also researched and documented other Vitamins and minerals and their effect on health including selenium details that can be found at the Oregon State University.

I had originally posted a different image of a selenium supplement on the post but I changed it as keith kindly pointed out which brand and dosage he uses which is Natural Factors selenium at a dosage of 200 mcgs.

Developing Critical Thinking Skills

This is not something our educational system or cuture seems to value. However nowadays we have access to more information than ever before, but at the same time we are more confused. This make developing critical thinking skills a higher priority for everyone. I covered problems and the causes of this problem in a previous blog post called “Education or Instruction?”. Poor critical thinking skills are so endemic that many people have lost confidence in their own ability to make decisions. Most people outsource the majority of their most important thinking to other people believing themselves incapable. I believe there’s huge room for improvement in most people , including myself and for this reason I was very excited when I came accross the Trivium and the Peace Revolution Podcast. Lacking in the ability and confidence to scrutinize information makes a person an easy target for scoundrels. The Peace Revolution Podcast aims to provide information and tools to develop skills needed for “intellectual self defence” by developing critical thinking skills.

The Trivium is one of those tools . Today the trivium is taught only in a small group of elite educational establishments. The fundamentals of the trivium are ancient, they were developed by Aristotle. The Latin word “Trivium” means “from the three ways”

1. General Grammar (Answers the question of the Who, What, Where, and the When of a subject.) Discovering and ordering facts of reality comprises basic, systematic Knowledge

The mastery of the Trivium allows for an individual to quickly assimilate information, judge its quality and turn this information into wisdom. Wisdom being knowledge that has useful application. In studying the trivium Formal Logic is a good place to start as it deals with the identification of lies, which is something we are bombarded daily. Using Formal Logic to Identify fallacies The study of Formal Logic helps understanding by rooting out contradictions and fallacies. Fallacies are not the same as lies they are information that is either deliberately or unknowingly misleading. With the trivium you can you identify fallacies and also name the type of fallacy that is being perpetrated. For a list common fallacies that you could pop in your wallet see this Mental Antivirus checklist. To see some fallacies in action see below

I currently have the Mental Antivirus checklist in my wallet and have already brought some logical rigour to some pub conversations. I provided some friends a copy of the Mental Antivirus Checklist and found that using the common approach meant we had much more meaningful dialogue than normal.

Final thought

The word trivia is derived from singular for the Trivium. It is interesting how something so important has come stand for something so…………….trivial. I’d love know how you get on with the Trivium – Drop me line in the comments! Paul

Developing Critical Thinking Skills

This is not something our educational system or cuture seems to value. However nowadays we have access to more information than ever before, but at the same time we are more confused. This make developing critical thinking skills a higher priority for everyone. I covered problems and the causes of this problem in a previous blog post called “Education or Instruction?”. Poor critical thinking skills are so endemic that many people have lost confidence in their own ability to make decisions. Most people outsource the majority of their most important thinking to other people believing themselves incapable. I believe there’s huge room for improvement in most people , including myself and for this reason I was very excited when I came accross the Trivium and the Peace Revolution Podcast. Lacking in the ability and confidence to scrutinize information makes a person an easy target for scoundrels. The Peace Revolution Podcast aims to provide information and tools to develop skills needed for “intellectual self defence” by developing critical thinking skills.

The Trivium is one of those tools . Today the trivium is taught only in a small group of elite educational establishments. The fundamentals of the trivium are ancient, they were developed by Aristotle. The Latin word “Trivium” means “from the three ways”

1. General Grammar (Answers the question of the Who, What, Where, and the When of a subject.) Discovering and ordering facts of reality comprises basic, systematic Knowledge

The mastery of the Trivium allows for an individual to quickly assimilate information, judge its quality and turn this information into wisdom. Wisdom being knowledge that has useful application. In studying the trivium Formal Logic is a good place to start as it deals with the identification of lies, which is something we are bombarded daily. Using Formal Logic to Identify fallacies The study of Formal Logic helps understanding by rooting out contradictions and fallacies. Fallacies are not the same as lies they are information that is either deliberately or unknowingly misleading. With the trivium you can you identify fallacies and also name the type of fallacy that is being perpetrated. For a list common fallacies that you could pop in your wallet see this Mental Antivirus checklist. To see some fallacies in action see below

I currently have the Mental Antivirus checklist in my wallet and have already brought some logical rigour to some pub conversations. I provided some friends a copy of the Mental Antivirus Checklist and found that using the common approach meant we had much more meaningful dialogue than normal.

Final thought

The word trivia is derived from singular for the Trivium. It is interesting how something so important has come stand for something so…………….trivial. I’d love know how you get on with the Trivium – Drop me line in the comments! Paul

Knowledge is power only if it enables action

Life is a journey through self discovery. Knowledge is power only if it enables action, Action is is only powerful if it is congruent with your values. Values are only valuable if they are questioned.

Ten years ago I decided to start to take back control of the financial decisions in my life, to stop listening to opinions of "experts" to understand the issues so I can make plans and strategies of my own.
My interest in economics lead me to conclude that over the next decade there is to be a significant shift in worldwide economic power. Over the last few years I have been making and acting on plans to mitigate the impact of this occurrence.
Over this time I have become increasingly passionate about activities that can increase personal liberty and self reliance including subjects such as internet technologies, food production, personal energy production and general preparedness.
To help me understand the issues and act on my plans I have had to improve my skills of critical thinking, research and productivity. I use the "Trivium Method" to help me separate fact from fiction and gain actionable knowledge (wisdom). I use the "getting things done method to help increase my capability to put this knowlege into action.
More about me can be found here

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